Meghan Markle announced as part of South By Southwest Festival lineup

04 March 2024 , 18:04

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Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has been announced as part of the annual South By Southwest Festival's lineup for 2024

SXSW has announced that Meghan Markle has joined the lineup for the South by Southwest Music Festival, which will take place between March 8 and March 16.

South by Southwest, which is also referred to as SXSW, is a festival that celebrates the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture. For 2024, the festival will take place in Austin, Texas.

And now, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has been announced as one of the participants for this year's festival. Meghan is gearing up to participate in the opening day keynote which is titled Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen.

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Meghan Markle will appear at SXSW festival this month (Getty Images for Project Healthy Minds)

The Duchess, who founded the Archewell Foundation and Archewell Productions, will be joined by journalist Katie Couric, actress Brooke Shields and diversity equity and inclusion consultant at Peoplism, Nancy Wang Yuen. It has also been announced that Errin Haines, host of The Amendment podcast, will moderate the keynote session.

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Meghan's keynote session will take place on March 8, the opening day of SXSW, which also happens to be International Women’s Day. The session will focus on "how the ubiquitous nature of social media is creating an often dangerous environment which has led to serious mental health issues for teenage girls in particular," according to the festival description.

The announcement also touched on how women’s representation in media and entertainment "has come a long way, but there's still much to be done, especially for women of color and mothers". Announcing the Duchess of Sussex as a participant, SXSW noted how she is a "feminist and champion of human rights and gender equity", as well as a New York Times bestselling author.

The announcement of Meghan's latest pending public appearance comes after a Hollywood guru predicted that Harry and Meghan will start making more public appearances to rebuild their brand, with Lynn Carratt from Press Box PR revealing to The Mirror that she believes "they will also be on the outlook for new commercial deals".

Mollie Quirk